“Recent reports that the president called for an increase in the US nuclear arsenal are absolutely false,” Mattis said in a statement. “This kind of erroneous reporting is irresponsible.”

According to an NBC News report published early on Wednesday, Trump expressed dismay at the state of the US nuclear arsenal in a July 20 meeting after seeing a chart showing the decline of the stockpile since the 1960s.

Trump reportedly said he didn’t want to be at the bottom position on the chart’s downward-sloping curve and called for a tenfold increase.